Hugh advanced a little nearer to the design that he had in view.
"You might have found me more kindly disposed towards you," he said,
"than you had anticipated."
This encouraging reply cost him an effort. He had stooped to the
unworthy practice of perverting what he had said and done on a former
occasion, to serve a present interest. Remind himself as he might of
the end which, in the interests of Iris, did really appear to justify
the means, he still sank to a place in his own estimation which he was
honestly ashamed to occupy.
Under other circumstances his hesitation, slight as it was, might have
excited suspicion. As things were, Mr. Vimpany could only discover
golden possibilities that dazzled his eyes. "I wonder whether you're in
the humour," he said, "to be kindly disposed towards me now?"
It was needless to be careful of the feelings of such man as this.
"Suppose you had the money you want in your pocket," Hugh suggested,
"what would you do with it?"
"Go back to London, to be sure, and publish the first number of that
work of mine I told you of."
"And leave your friend, Lord Harry?"
"What good is my friend to me? He's nearly as poor as I am--he sent for
me to advise him--I put him up to a way of filling both our pockets,
and he wouldn't hear of it. What sort of a friend do you call that?"
Pay him and get rid of him. There was the course of proceeding
suggested by the private counsellor in Mountjoy's bosom.
"Have you got the publisher's estimate of expenses?" he asked.
The doctor instantly produced the document.
To a rich man the sum required was, after all, trifling enough.
Mountjoy sat down at the writing-table. As he took up a pen, Mr.
Vimpany's protuberant eyes looked as if they would fly out of his head.
"If I lend you the money--" Hugh began.
"Yes? Yes?" cried the doctor.
"I do so on condition that nobody is to know of the loan but
ourselves."
"Oh, sir, on my sacred word of honour--" An order on Mountjoy's bankers
in Paris for the necessary amount, with something added for travelling
expenses, checked Mr. Vimpany in full career of protestation. He tried
to begin again: "My friend! my benefactor--"
He was stopped once more. His friend and benefactor pointed to the
clock.
"If you want the money to-day, you have just time to get to Paris
before the bank closes."